Looks like our wonderful 67 degree weather day is going to transition to rain pretty soon. Good thing I got my run in earlier. if you recall, I’m in the midst of a Project Austin and today marked the first time on the road since three visits to Accelerated Performance. Today was all about working on the list of things I need to change in my running form (and that list is long). The good news is the tweaks resulted in very little pain in the hamstring – definitely a plus since that area usually flairs up during every run. Maybe those torture deep tissue messages are going to pay off or it is simply terrified that if it makes its presence known it will get the hell gouged out of it again. With the good news is a little bit of bad news. Apparently these changes are engaging a different set of muscles that have been neglected due to the injury compensating. At about mile 4 started feeling the effects and ended up backing down to only 5.5 miles today. This wasn’t meant to be a quick journey so not concerned yet – real test will be next week to see how quick those neglected muscles are going to take before they kick in. For now it’s just all about the rest.
Speaking of resting, that is the theme of today’s post. Apparently my last post scared some of our readers (okay, some being ONE but she has some power over me). Who wouldn’t want to curl up next to a badger? all fluffy for comfort and you know, NO ONE will mess with you if you are sleeping next to a BADGER (especially a Honey Badger because those are just bad-ass). Instead I get a plea for a more pleasant looking animals. Sigh, figured I get kudos for bringing something new and intriguing but instead I get a fear response – not unlike when your lovely wife finds a mouse in the car. Fortunately, the badger wasn’t the only wildlife we captured that day. Rifling through the shoot I decided on something more cute and plushy but added some contrast to it by taking it in an icky setting.
This isn’t the first time we’ve featured Canada Goose goslings here at LifeIntrigued (link here) but this is probably the nastiest setting I’ve bothered taking them in. We had just arrived at the park and was caught off guard by the crowd of visitors. Generally there is not problem parking in the close lots, but that day we were parked way out on a back road. On our trek to the entrance these goslings caught my eye – yes, I did say goslingS!
Hit the jump to read more about these cuties
I’ve always thought next to swans, the Canada Goose gosling is one of the cutest of the bird offspring. Most birds look somewhat frail and sickly, but these are the very definition of fuzzy and cuddly. Not sure how old these particular specimen are, but guessing maybe 4-6 weeks old based on timeframe these were taken (May). They were clearly unable to fly and chose to just hang out in close proximity to the stagnant water.
Not the best light conditions (read harsh) for this particular set of shots, but I was shooting them from the road some distance away. This left ample opportunity for sun bounce. The thought of moving in for a better angle crossed my mind for about oh, a microsecond. If you have never had an experience with a protective Goose you probably have no idea how vicious adult Geese can be. They may have feathers on the outside, but on the inside their like a raging bull. I made the mistake of wandering near a nest one time and both the male and female spread their wings, lowered their heads into a spear and charged at me. Think my brother may have had a similar experience.
Little did I know at the time that my lovely wife would extract revenge for this aggressive behavior. It could be just where we live now, but when I was growing up there didn’t seem to be as many Geese flooding the suburban areas like there are now. Every walk from the car to my office has at least one Goose hanging out on the grounds and there isn’t a round of golf played without having to navigate around a small flock (and their landmines). It’s at the golf course where Linda decided to make them pay for all their misdeeds. There we were, probably 40 yards from the pin staring at about 6-10 Geese strolling through the fairway. While I admired their free spirit and carefree lifestyle, Linda dived into her golf bag and emerged with a devilish grin, brandishing her fairway wood. Before I could put two and two together she had ran up to her ball, lined up her toes perpendicular to the Goose travel and launched a screamer right at them. My mouth dropped straight open from the double shock – shocked that she would do such a thing to a such a fragile creature and shocked again by the fact it was probably her finest shot of the day.
Sure enough, that golf ball found its mark smacking full on against the midsection of the Goose. The horror, the horror (the scene and her maniacal laugh afterwards). How could anyone wish harm on the mothers of these cute goslings! By the way, I learned something interesting while reading up on the Canada Goose over at Wikipedia. The parents lose their flight feathers during the summer molt. They are restored about the same time the goslings are ready to take flight. Seems like they were intelligently designed to stay focused on their parenting duties – if only humans had a similar trait, society would likely have SIGNIFICANTLY less issues (heck, maybe we wouldn’t have to experience the election of a socialist administration).
Alas, there is always the joker in the bunch that feels compelled to express their opinion of my photography skills. “Hey, you human over there with your ridiculously large glass disturbing our Pandora. Yeah, you, this is what I think of your skilz!”
Nice.. go tell your mother my wife just pulled her fairway wood out of the trunk.
That’s all for today folks, time to get back to the games – the Shockers choked it away so now having to cheer for Michigan (Chief Illiniwek just turned in his grave) who is finally starting to flex their three point might.
… so Linda .. is this feature more pleasurable for you?
Once again you have the story totally wrong. The geese were in the middle of the fairway a good distance ahead of us. I turned to you to ask what I should do as I did not want to hit one. Your response – dont worry about it as you can’t hit the ball that far anyways. Riiight. You know better than to say that as that usually means I beat you on that hole. Wait wasn’t there a round in the Ozarks where I beat you the entire game?? I believe I had lots of witnesses.
What we have here a failure to admit extreme Geese prejudice. I have written record from the MANY witnesses that day all collaborating the account described here. Since you have decided to tread into the golf competition arena I shall make a few comments on that as well. 99% of the time your statement regarding “So, golf god Brian, what club should I use here” is the standard pre-shot routine (the 1% being the exception when Geese are in range in which case it is the fairway wood regardless of distance from the pin). So not only do I have to worry about my own game, I literally have to play two rounds at once. Add to that the annoyance of blatant lack of golf etiquette, making attempts to keep my ball in the fairway 8 times harder than it should – case in point, her favorite tricks after getting her to stop asking me questions and pointing out shiny objects while in the midst of my swing, is to either play with her velcro straps on her golf glove or flip the golf cart in reverse to initiate the backup beep. As she all but admits in the false rebuttal above, she believes the game of golf consists of 18 mini-games. Each game (hole if you will) is won or lost by whether she ties or god forbid actually beats me on a hole. It doesn’t matter how far out in front I am overall, the game resets at each tee box. So in reality the decks are stacked against me and the pressure of hearing about what hole she luckily tied me on the entire way home is almost enough to give up the game (err, stress) for good.
… and before I forget.. the Ozarks thing DOES NOT COUNT. Beating me at Putt Putt does not constitute beating me at golf. If a fairway wood or iron lower than a 7 never comes out of the bag… there is no basis for who wins or not so that particular day has been stricken from the logs.
Quick question: did Brian yell “fore” at the geese or not? Betting NOT.
There definitely were not as many geese years ago, and actually I think they’re declining again. Do you really think Canada Goose goslings are cuter than little Mallard Duck ducklings? Those ducklings are the cutest things after kittens (which would shred them if they caught them).
Speaking of Canada Goose(s?), I will again relate how I was driving to work in Aurora in 1984 and came down a hill on Route 30 to cross a bridge over a river, so going about 60mph, when three of them flew across the bridge at the height of, oh, say the grill of my car. As I hit one of them I saw a headless goose, with the neck flapping, launched into the air, and I suddenly experienced how much mass a Canada Goose actually has. It was only later in the day when I was relating this to someone else that he asked if the head might in fact be embedded in my engine or radiator. So with great trepidation I opened the hood and poked around and didn’t see it right away, and never opened the hood again. I should have called you–I understand you are the man for rooting out rodents in cars and such.
Ron
Okay, okay, do I have to go over this AGAIN. The person hitting the ball is NOT the one accountable for yelling FORE. In fact he can’t because proper form is to keep the head down past the contact point making it difficult to even see where the shot is headed – it is the responsibility of the other people in the group to track the trajectory, quickly judge if anyone is in jeopardy and yell the correct word… this is the main reason I don’t golf alone.
I must apologize to the Mallard ducklings. I had forgotten how cute they are until I did a quick check on the web – I don’t seem to have any duckling pictures which I find odd in itself. So with that memory jog, I now put the Goose Gosling third on the list – Swans still get the top seed.
OMG you beheaded a GOOSE! I can’t believe it, that has to be the most disgusting thing I’ve ever read (well, second to the rare owl Linda splattered against her windshield, but nothing will ever wipe that horrific scene out of my head). Yes, I have no problem dealing with a rodent in a car, but a Goose head.. you my friend would be on your own!
Thanks for sharing … sure to have nightmares tonight of a headless Goose riding on a horse with a flaming pumpkin.
Umm, so did you yell “fore” for Linda?
Ron
I didn’t know the Goose words for “crazy woman is trying to kill you”… unless of course it understood “Duck!” .. I crack myself up
+1 for your joke! I know the problem. When I was bearing down on the goose with my car I tried to honk at him but all he did was honk back.
Ron
niiice I’ll concede my +1 for the clever honk reference … mainly because I don’t want to see that story about you beheading a Goose again.. a harmless non-threatening goose… eeeesh
It did a number on my grill, let me tell you.